Odd Future Covers Spin Magazine [What's Fresh]

On the last day in Seattle, after Adult Swim shooting has wrapped and the rest of the crew has boarded the tour bus for Salt Lake City, Tyler is meticulously folding new T-shirts he has procured: all tie-dye, with different cat illustrations on the front, his taste seemingly that of a tween-girl environmentalist. The StepKids, a psychedelic, jazz-influenced band he likes, play on his laptop. "My new album [Wolf, expected to released in May 2012] is gonna sound like this," he says. "I wanna make the music I actually get all my influence from. I don't know how, but I'm gonna try shit like this out. I'm gonna make a band or something."

In a few days, though, Tyler will release a video for "Bitch Suck Dick," Goblin's most lunkheadedly brazen song. It's an absurd, spoofy clip featuring, among other things, Jasper rolling around in a tracksuit and Lionel ripping apart his shirt. "It's an ignorant-ass song," says Tyler, anticipating backlash. "If I'm not listening to cheesy indie-jazzy rock shit, I'm listening to ignorant-ass rap shit like Waka Flocka and OJ Da Juiceman. And I made a song that sounds like that energy, but in my world. I think making a song about punching a bitch in the face is funny, because if you're a regular person, just hearing that is fucking crazy, and 90 percent of the people know I'm just fucking around."

But as Odd Future's new projects are released — and as they become an ever bigger force in hip-hop — will his approach shift away from contrarianism and provocation? "Talking about rape and cutting bodies up, it just doesn't interest me anymore," he says, contemplative and sincere, looking directly into my eyes, now sitting cross-legged on the hotel bed. "What interests me is making weird hippie music for people to get high to. With Wolf, I'll brag a little bit more, talk about money and buying shit. But not like any other rapper, I'll be a smart-ass about it. Now it's just girls throwing themselves at me and shit, but I got a girl back home. People who want the first album again, I can't do that. I was 18, broke as fuck. On my third album, I have money and I'm hanging out with my idols. I can't rap about the same shit." The look on his face is uncompromising. The man knows where his power lies.

We spend two more hours chatting, about heartbreak, piano lessons, and how it sucks when your mom follows you on Twitter. At one point he exclaims, "I've never been this happy in my life. I just got a shirt with a fuckin' cat on it!" The next day, when Tyler hugs me goodbye, he says, "Bye, loser," in his famous, growling baritone. I snap back, "I hate you." As my cab pulls away to go to the airport, I already miss the Wolf Gang.